I think a lot of the people in my life who have expressed disgust or disapproval of my interest in/collection of animal remains have come at it first from the perspective of "but diseases!" like regular uncleanliness stigma. the second most common reaction is that interest in/collection of/comfort with animal remains (to be clear, i collect bones and sometimes preserved tails or pelts and these are the objects in question) is... creepy? and, the people who are most disgusted/creeped out are usually people who by and large dont interact with wild animals or livestock. my friends who are vet techs or who hunt or who practice animal husbandry are more or less unfazed.
(Re: What are actual common attitudes towards animal remains?)
Now, I'm wondering if people mistake personal discomfort for immorality.
I've mentioned my one video that did get some negative comments, showing the slaughter of a reindeer (you can see it here but I have warnings on it for a reason! Blood and death!) And, I think 90% or so (I suppose I could go count them) are more reasonable.
First, people are mad at the assumption that I killed a reindeer (I did NOT kill it, I just filmed it.) Then, the issue is it's being killed for no reason (it was NOT no reason, it's for food.) Then the method is criticized (this is one of the ONLY legal ways to kill them and it's quicker than it looks because of post-mortem spasms.) Then, when those concerns are disproven, the only issue left is "filming and posting it is sadistic." So...killing was no problem, but showing anyone that their meat came from a death was a problem. (Again, I respect if you don't want to see it! So please heed the warnings unless your desire to know how reindeer are killed outweighs your discomfort with watching a death!)
I wonder if sometimes people are overly focused on prioritizing their own 5-second comfort over things that matter a lot more, but are external to them, and they don't really care about others who they are not currently looking in the face of at all.
This isn't a 100% relevant example, but consider the people who don't want to donate their organs after death. A common reason to forgo something that could save and improve lots of lives is "it sounds gross!" Ickiness really should not be a factor in whether or not to save lives--the donor will never see or feel it, but since it's not their own life being saved, the 5-second icky feeling when checking the "donor" box is suddenly more important than the saved and improved human lives.
I know I shouldn't think too hard about one random experience, but I will always remember this one. I was once at a consumer survey thing for a turkey meat brand, where participants tried the meat and said what we thought about the name, taste, packaging, branding etc. We were instructed to circle what we liked on the branding and cross out what we didn't like.
One participant crossed out the part where it said "humanely raised." I asked if she had made a mistake, or...does she feel like the label is disingenuous or something...? Surely she's pro-humane treatment of animals, right??
"No," she said. "I don't want them to do that. I don't want to think about their lives when I'm eating them, and they don't need to be humane to animals that are going to die anyway." Most of the group agreed. I couldn't help but point and say "YOU'RE gonna die anyway!"
That may have been the first time I encountered a group of people shamelessly agreeing that they would rather animals suffer unnecessarily than think for one second that the animal whose body they are using/eating was ever even alive. Because not feeling guilty about something was infinitely more important to them than any amount of suffering that someone else might experience.
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